The invention is generally related to personal finance, and more particularly, to identifying and collecting electronic receipt or transaction data. Consumers purchase goods and services using various forms of payment including credit card, debit card, automated teller machine (ATM) card, check, automated clearing house (ACH) wire and cash. Certain transactions are debited from consumer bank accounts. For example, a checking or savings account may be debited when a consumer pays for a good or service with a debit card. A credit card may also be used for payment by the consumer. Debit and credit card transactions appear as line items within their respective accounts.
For certain types of transactions, consumers can access their respective on-line accounts to view their statements and transaction information. The transaction information that is available, however, is rather limited since line item entries may include only minimal information such as merchant name, transaction amount and transaction date. More informative lower or item level, or Level III receipt data, is not available to consumers when accessing their on-line checking or credit card accounts.
Receipt collection programs such as QUICKRECEIPTS of hosts such as Intuit Inc. have been developed to collect electronic receipt data from merchants from whom goods and services were purchased by consumers. QUICKRECEIPTS is a registered trademark of Intuit Inc. A consumer registers with the host and is associated with an identifier such as a number of receipt program member card, a club or discount card or a card of the merchants, and merchants join or participate in the receipt collection service such that they provide electronic receipt data generated by respective payment or transaction processing devices of respective member merchants to the host computer, e.g., daily, weekly or at other times. When a consumer purchases an item from a participating merchant using the receipt program member card, a club or discount card or a card of the merchant, the electronic receipt data that is generated by the merchant is associated with the consumer, and that receipt data is sent to the host computer and stored to the data repository with that consumer association by the receipt program. The receipt program collects, organizes and stores receipt data such that consumers who log onto their accounts with the host can view their receipts and information such as purchase date and amount and low or item level or Level III receipt data such as quantity of items purchased, item description, item product code, item model or serial number, an image of the item, form of payment, payment card number, purchase price, tax, total, order or transaction number, information about returns and warranties, the particular store (e.g., address or store number) from which the item was purchased, etc.
The receipt program is used to collect, organize and store electronic receipt data to the receipt database or repository, which may include electronic receipt data of multiple consumers and multiple merchants who register with the host. Later, a consumer logs onto his or her account with the host, and the receipt program retrieves electronic receipt data for that consumer to allow the consumer to view collected electronic receipt data using the receipt program, which may be used to track spending for the past week or month, identify and analyze spending categories and for returns and warranty claims.
While receipt programs such as QUICKRECEIPTS provide significant advances compared to limited line item transaction summaries, the effectiveness of such receipt programs relies in part upon the electronic transaction or receipt data provided to the host and processed by the receipt program. For example, consumers may purchase goods and services from merchants who do not participate in the receipt data collection service such that the host does not receive their electronic transaction data. Consequently, receipt programs may collect, organize and store a portion of available electronic transaction data when consumers purchase goods and services from non-participating merchants, thereby causing data generated by the receipt program to be based on a subset of electronic transaction data.